Having a Great Time

We have decided to extend our time in Hoi An by a day, so we will only spend two days in Ho Chi Min City. We are no longer travelling by train as, apparently, it is a 24 hour train trip from Hoi An to Ho Chi Min City. (who knew?) So, that is too long and we are now flying. So, as you can imagine, Sam is devastated. (I think he did a happy dance) We managed to book a flight to Ho Chi Min City and a hotel room there this morning. The lovely internet. I remember the days of just heading off to a destination and then trudging around, often, until dusk finding a Pensione, with varying degrees of anxiety.

Hoi An is lovely, a historic village as beautiful as they come, with its yellow ochre walls and attached buildings with flowering bougainvillea climbing up the walls. I could imagine having a little house here, just to get away from it all... tourists withstanding.

We rode on bikes to the beach yesterday, lovely it was too. It was four kilometres along a winding country road. Lovely. Of course, it was busy with motorbikes, tracks and cars, but still lovely, none the less But, we didn't have any swimming shorts, so it was just a look and then we returned to the town. The most interesting thing about merging traffic here is that they just don't look, just come straight out in front of you.

In the hunt for swimming shorts, we some how managed to have shoes and black woollen jackets made for each of us. (not sure how that happened) Then it was lunch, of course, what Sam loves the most, over looking the river. All washed down with passionfruit juice. Lovely. We walked along the river and finally found the famous bridge that everyone goes to see, but had so far alluded us. Duh! We had to ask some Australians, in the end, who looked kind of bemused, as it was literally around the next corner. (nervous smile)

We walked through the hubbub that is the markets. We ate street food in the form of bean curd drinks. We haggled for goods and felt that we had become quite skilled at it, but maybe we are kidding ourselves. They haggle here with gusto, unlike the jaded shop keepers in Hanoi. We bought a few things with the advantage of not really caring if we got them or not. One woman we haggled hard with asked us finally to give her some "lucky Dong" to help her out with the deal. "Ah, no, sorry," we said. I took it as a good sign.

So, anyway, I think we are now off to the beach on our trusty steeds, new swimming shorts and sun block out SPF 90 (?) as I have a sunburn face, I think for the first time for as long as I can remember. All packed in our bike baskets.